


Panther's Pride

by yodalorian



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Pre-Black Panther (2018), bit of smol t'challa, maybe lying is bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23144671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yodalorian/pseuds/yodalorian
Summary: in which T'Chaka gets tired of the secrecy and lies and does something about it
Relationships: Ramonda/T'Chaka (Marvel), T'Chaka & T'Challa (Marvel)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Panther's Pride

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a year ago but publishing it now that I have an account

“By the authority of the throne of Wakanda, I order you to stop!” But nothing could stop him now. Not even the might of the Black Panther.

The holographic display hummed to life under his touch, the security code he had stolen from the royal computer system entered. And with a simple motion, the barrier that had concealed Wakanda, protected Wakanda, preserved Wakanda, began to decay.

* * *

“For the last time, Wakanda does not require your assistance.” Some steel had begun to show in Azzuri’s voice. The king was growing tired of this.

“It would be no cost to us at all.” Concern still flashed in the young man’s eyes. “Your people--”

“This meeting is over. My bodyguards will escort you out.” At least this man wasn’t so stubborn that he didn’t recognize when he lost a fight. He allowed himself to be led away by the Dora Milaje, stripped of their gleaming armor jewelry.

T’Chaka watched him leave. He recognized the look in the eyes of that young man. It was the look every outsider that came to Wakanda had. Pity for the sad state of their nation, tinged with a bit of wonder and curiosity...was this dry, poverty-stricken nation really the land that had given birth to those fantastical, whispered rumors and stories of the magical metal vibranium and the powerful warrior known as the Black Panther?

“You know he’s not going to leave,” T’Chaka turned to his father. 

“I know,” Azzuri sighed. “It won’t be hard to keep him in those fake villages.”

T’Chaka supposed he should be uncomfortable with casual talk about deceptively run-down villages, but he was far too used to it by now.

Azzuri studied his son’s frown. “Well, you might as well say it.”

T’Chaka shifted uneasily. “It’s just...wrong.” His voice began to rise. “Those people want to help, and we’re...we’re wasting their time and money. There are many people in Africa, around the world, who need their kind hearts, yet we sit here in our comfortable palace and let them--”

“And what would you have us do?” Azzuri’s voice adopted its cold tone again. “Reveal our secrets to our enemies? Hand out vibranium to any warlord that wants it?”

“No, Father, I...no.” 

Azzuri’s face softened. “Everything I do is to protect you and our nation, T’Chaka. It has been our way for thousands of years, and it has not failed us yet. You have already succeeded me as the Black Panther, and soon you will succeed me as king. Perhaps then, you will understand.” 

* * *

“Well, Ulysses?” Kate rushed over as the Wakandan car clattered away, leaving behind choking clouds of dust. She studied the crestfallen expression on his face. “More of the same, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah.” He absentmindedly scratched the back of his neck. “The king has ordered us to leave immediately.”

Kate turned to look at the crates of food and medical supplies they had hauled with them. “I’m guessing we’re not going to.”

“Nope.” The familiar gleam returned to Ulysses’ eye. “The king can say whatever he wants. I’ve already identified a hole in their border security. We’re going to help these people.”

* * *

Bored and preoccupied, T’Chaka ran a vibranium spearhead over the long windowsill, halfheartedly watching the orange glow of the setting sun reflect off the metal.

“Would you stop that?” N’Jobu grumbled. “It’s hard to concentrate.”

T’Chaka was saved from having to mumble an apology by the beeping of his kimoyo beads. He tapped them, and black particles collected over them, forming the image of his father.

“T’Chaka. I have a new mission for you. Pirates and the Nigerian police are clashing daily, more and more violently. Go and stop them.”

“I’m guessing this isn’t just out of the goodness of your heart.”

Azzuri sighed. “No. The pirates are advancing toward a vein of vibranium, one of the few outside our borders. If they somehow find it, they could start a war and probably win.”

Azzuri’s image was crushed in T’Chaka’s fingers. More concerned with precious vibranium than human lives. T’Chaka didn’t even try to conceal his disgust.

* * *

As silent and stealthy as his namesake, the Black Panther perched in a dead tree, invisible in the night. T’Chaka watched the pirates carve their way through the small farming village, waving their rifles haphazardly, shouting threats and orders. This one seemed to be actually poor. Flame quickly devoured the thin dry walls of the huts, filling the sky with suffocating smoke and ash. He trembled with rage as he looked at the bodies of men and boys, piled carelessly in the dirt, pocked with bullet holes. But the women, herded together, huddling together and sobbing, likely had a far worse fate. T’Chaka didn’t want to imagine what would happen to them. The rape. The slavery.

Never.

Smoothly, almost gracefully, he lunged from the tree, digging his claws into a pirate’s chest. They screamed, shouted, fired, but the bullets sparked harmlessly off his vibranium skin. He advanced on them like a creature born from the jungle, unstoppable. He was a blur of deadly black, not human and not animal. His claws slashed their bodies, his strength breaking their grip. A scratch for every bullet.

Finally one was left, a boy even younger than T’Chaka, scared and desperate. Probably from a broken home, forced into crime. T’Chaka tried to reason with the boy, calm him down, but he held something out. A gun? A knife?

A detonator.

T’Chaka barely had time to scream “Get down!” before the world was engulfed in flame.

Dark patches swam in his vision, the ringing in his ears drowning out everything else. T’Chaka tried to stumble to his feet, tried to remember where he was and what he was doing.

The pirate’s trucks and whatever had been left standing of the town had been completely obliterated. Bodies lay strewn across the blood-soaked ground, shattered and burned. His own armor was fractured and ripped, the helmet blown clean off his head. His hair was sticky.

T’Chaka limped through the wreckage, ignoring the pain throbbing in his bones, calling hoarsely for someone, anyone who survived. But only the silence of the dead responded.

At last, he found someone. An old woman, who was the farthest from the blast. Her legs a tangled mess, her internal organs punctured, but alive.

“Get up, _umakhulu_ , get up, it is not safe here.” He had no idea what he was going to do. Father’s no-foreigner policy was abundantly clear, no exceptions. T’Chaka wasn’t sure Azzuri wouldn’t kick out a dying old woman.

“I cannot, my son, I cannot.” Her voice was no more than a feeble whisper. T’Chaka could only kneel beside her, his eyes burning with tears.

“You...you are Prince T’Chaka!” Even on her deathbed, a toothless smile appeared. “The legends are true! The...the Black Panther…” She coughed, blood dribbling down her cheek.

“Rest, grandmother, rest.” He couldn’t bring himself to lie, to deny any connection between Wakanda and the Black Panther, to maintain his father’s deception.

“You have come to liberate us,” she smiled. “Little news manages to find its way out here, but I always knew you are a brave and honest young man.” She raised a wrinkled hand to his cheek. “You will lead Africa to its glorious sunrise.”

Each raspy breath fluttered between her lips, becoming shorter, farther apart. He could easily place a kimoyo bead on her wounds, stabilize them, find a hospital to take her to. Wakanda always honored its elders. But how would he explain this technology that fended off death? How would he explain how the prince of one of the poorest nations in the world came to possess such magic? Dare he defy his father?

As she died in his arms, T’Chaka couldn’t shake off the feeling in the pit of his stomach that this kindly old woman was terribly, horribly wrong.

* * *

He watched yet another Wakandan sunset paint the fields with gold. He studied the bandages on his arms, laced with vibranium, leaving only fading scars. Why was he allowed to be almost completely healthy again after a few days when he couldn’t save innocent lives? Why was he alive, given a pat on the back and a shrug _(you did the best you could)_?

Ramonda poked his arm. “Talk to me.”

“I’m...I’m fine.”

“You’re clearly not.”

She was right, like always. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“You don’t have to tell me.” She clasped his face in her hands. “I know things can be difficult to explain. I know I can’t hope to understand your life, being heir to the throne and protector of our nation. Whatever it is you’re dealing with, I just hope you do what you know is the right thing to do.”

T’Chaka smiled. “I love you. And there’s something I need to set right.”

* * *

As night fell, he sneaked his way up into the tall towers of the palace, until he reached the main control room of all of Wakanda’s systems. He was bathed in the soft blue electronic glow. Suddenly, Azzuri’s voice filled the room. 

“By the authority of the throne of Wakanda, I order you to stop!” But nothing could stop him now. Not even the might of the Black Panther.

The holographic display hummed to life under his touch, the security code he had stolen from the royal computer system entered. And with a simple motion, the barrier that had concealed Wakanda, protected Wakanda, preserved Wakanda, began to decay.

Wearing one of his old Panther Habits, Azzuri slammed into T’Chaka. Despite no longer having the power of the Heart-Shaped Herb and his age, the king was still strong. Together, father and son crashed through a window, falling down to the sloped roofs below.

* * *

“Ulysses?” Kate called. “What...what’s happening?”

Ulysses came to her side, watching in bewilderment. It was as if the aurora borealis had been transplanted from the Arctic, light flickering above Wakanda. Thick forest melted away into light, revealing Wakanda, the true Wakanda, before his eyes.

“Vibranium. So much vibranium,” Ulysses breathed. Enough to build an empire that stretched across the world, an empire greater than anything before it, an empire that would never be defeated, an empire with him at its head.

Ulysses Klaue was ready to take control of his destiny.

* * *

“What have you done!?” Azzuri barked.

“What I should have done a long time ago, Father,” T’Chaka hissed. “Lying for our own good is the action of a villain.”

“Is this what you wanted?” Azzuri’s voice trembled with rage as he pointed in the distance. T’Chaka’s sharpened hearing picked up the faint screams and shouts, his eyes noticing the bloom of flame.

“No…” There was no doubt who it was. Could greed really change someone so quickly, transform altruists into imperialists?

“Damn ‘charity workers’,” Azzuri hissed. “Never trust the outsiders.” The Black Panther disappeared into the night. And T’Chaka was left utterly alone.

As the barrier shielding Wakanda from the outside world broke down, the barrier shielding him from reality broke down. Was this how the world worked? A little evil to hold back the crush of the rest of it?

* * *

The door to the royal quarters slid open with a pleasant purr, and T’Chaka looked up expectantly. But there were no squeals of joy, no running into daddy’s arms. His young son merely stood there in the doorway, his face crinkled with confusion.

“What’s bothering you, T’Challa?”

“Father, today...the tutor...h-he…”

“What did the tutor tell you, son?”

“He told me about something called _war._ ”

T’Chaka sighed, mentally preparing his reassurance. “Nothing will happen, T’Challa. Wakanda is safe--”

“No!” T’Challa pushed away his father’s attempt to scoop him up. “Why?”

“Why?”

“Why? Why do people k-kill each other? Why isn’t the whole world like Wakanda? Why isn’t everyone happy...and nice...and....”

“That’s not the way the world works.”

“Why not?” T’Challa glared at his father.

T’Chaka recognized that look. The simple, black-and-white morality of youth, before the world smudged it with its meddling fingerprints. He used to have it too.

T’Chaka lifted his young son into his arms. “Perhaps someday you will understand,” he murmured against T’Challa’s neck. But perhaps T’Challa never would. After all, T’Chaka never did.


End file.
